New Low (nihilistia x Verse)

[nihilistia]

Credit: Verse

He liked the flavor of their tension in the car. She'd know about Denya soon enough. Denya would make sure of that. But for now, her being slightly offended and sullen was better than where they'd stood with each other, in the headquarters. He petted her back, like appeasing a pet going to the vet. He loved her, but he also knew her value. He'd chained himself to his own downfall. That's all she could be, and all of them had to have something like this. So he knew they were going to a better place than where you'd put your junkie lay. Not like a shit like him deserved better, but he'd seen enough boys that looked similar have a lot more that he got blind to that, sometimes. Katosh had much more, and he was worth a lot less. Who would have thought a Yakuza loyal would have been so prejudice in a city of international crime. In the sliding darkness coming in from the window, she was beautiful. In the depth of it, he thought he saw vibrating flashes of how they used to be. It didn't look like potential, anymore, it just looked like ghosts built out of nostalgia. Once, he reached for it, but his fingers settled on her present day cheek. She was still so beautiful.

There was hope in him, though, that slightly frantic kind, when he showed her around. He hadn't really been doing this for better living. He was short sighted and vain. Better cars, more shit, but he liked the locales where there were cockroaches but he could fill with LV luggage and Gucci furniture. Maybe a machine gun hanging off the ceiling. But a place with good bones in a better part of town was nice too, he supposed. Anything to show the world who he'd become. Looking at her as she came alive, he realized it had all happened for him when she came back. The irreverence, the desperation - maybe he hadn't used enough of it in her absence. Pretty childhood friend, come into his new life to inject that spirit that he was liking. Turning a runner into a bunch of teeth, finally. It was overly romantic about her, as she knew him to be, but that's how it was, when they were together. He could be synnical, she'd kinda taught him that, but didn't mean he was hopeless. That's what he lived on, when he had to stand up after a harrowing beating. People didn't like to see it, but the lost boys in the Yareli night were made of hope. And, just like their academic performances, it was a drop in a cesspool, but it was all they were. All they had.

He was gleeful when she went about assessing the place. He nodded like he knew what she was talking about, but for him, as long as you threw in namebrand stuff and maybe something that looked cool, he was happy. He could stuff himself into a corner and sleep like a baby, if he needed to. A good place to fuck was always welcome, and he suspected that's all this was going to be, if he fixed it up. He shrugged but it was really a nod. "We got contractors." If anything was rotten to the core, it was workplaces rife with men, and construction and building, well. If they'd given him this place, then they sure as fuck wouldn't mind if he changed it. Time was cheap, and materials could be stolen. Even money that's how the former owners had this place remodeled too. Rumor had it, Kaijin had some taste though, so maybe it was good to aim to impress. Shun could be a bit of simpleton, because he hadn't had enough to develop his own eye, yet.

Tina. Out of Carmen's mouth. Something burnt over his scalp, that kind of sizzling and rampant draw of sinew and tension at having an issue repeated. It made him feel violent and also like he'd always have this fucking problem. "You really hung up on Tina, huh?" he asked the window and the sentiment was bone dry. But he didn't stay in that boyish irritation for long. He laughed and almost fell over when she attached to him. But she didn't weigh anything. Her long limbs locked around him good. He circled her legs with his arms and spun easily with her. He leaned into the kiss when her neck wouldn't go the entire way around his. He grinned and became taller, spine correcting, despite her hanging on him. He liked when she was impressed. It was a bit harder getting one over on Carmen Evans, unless it was chemical, these days. Her voice was pretty, at this pitch. And then he felt her intentions, and quieted, though there was a strange rasp to his breaths.

He leaned forward slightly, forehead to the glass, and made fog on it. Why was this so exciting? Like he hadn't already fucked today. He didn't know what to do at first, but he was all filled up with adrenaline from having done good by her. Maybe even the old her, a little bit. She got him out, she knew how, and his fat cock reflected in the dark of the window. He didn't put any restraint up and got hard to the point where the tip kissed the cold window. He let go of her to let her slide off him. He pulled her around and had her back to the city, and pulled her top off. No. He got everything off with some well-meaning frustration. Looking her over, he took a few steps back as he got his own clothes off as well. The irritation around the details of the inked teeth had settled, and the shadows were brilliant, because the people who'd needled them in lived for it.

He had his hand around the base of his cock and moved it in an expert motion. Already there was pree in the slit. Carmen was her deprived self, cut against the city. He nodded with a quiet growl in his mouth. Maybe this was what success looked like. Wasn't he getting everything he wanted? He pushed forward, body into hers. Just wanted to feel her skin marry his. Cock rode her stomach before it was crushed between them, eager to get inside but also happy to slather her with precum. He kissed her and it was delicious because of the chocolate and her breath and the texture of her tongue. He tried to mangle her against the glass. "I'll level this fucking city for you." he said with that determination that looked like anger on boys. Took her legs around him again, this time he hung her on him from the front. Impaled her but it was amicable. "Fuck." he groaned into her ear.

 

[nihilistia]

"Tch." Carmen answered about Tina, eyes rolling. Her chin was on his shoulder, reaching under the elastic of his underwear when she angled her head at him like seriously? She didn't really have to answer. He was already onto the next thing. Insatiable, she was learning, but that could be good for her, later. Not like he actually wanted to talk about it, but he felt a bit safer to speak to, while his cock was in her hand and she was contoured to his back. Carmen rolled her cheek against his shoulder. "Be real. I guess you wouldn't care one bit if I came back and had a shiny new white boy with a nice dick?" She asked and rose her brow.

"I been nice 'cause she don't deserve none of this. I could tell she loves you. But you fucking other girls anyway, so it might as well be me, right?" Carmen asked and smiled up at him as her thumb swept up a bead of pre. "I bet she a freak, and you two are real cute. But you don't love her like she loves you. It was always me, like it was always you." Maybe she just thought he'd agree because of the promise of fucking. Maybe it's just what she needed to hear. These days, Shun was just another one of her vices. Probably the worst one, if she really thought about it, so she wouldn't. Much. He was deadly for her in a way her pills weren't. But she felt almost like a real person around him, not just some empty husk. He hadn't given up on her like the rest. And he was here, with her, not Tina. Carmen didn't want the rest of it anymore, hadn't for a while, but that's just not how it works. Her relationship with pills was toxic, worse than whatever this was, and her happiness didn't matter, she didn't get to leave. She'd tried tried anyway and came right back, and that voice was right all along. But at least now she actually wanted something else. Even if their past was gilded and unattainable. The now was gradually improving, and they had a whole future. For the first time in a while she could believe she had a future.

He pulled and Carmen swung around in front of him, licking the smear of cum off the pad of her thumb. She helped, raising her arms so her shirt could come away, and stepping out of her shorts. He was almost frenzied and it kindled excitement in her, despite their recent history. It was cold in the empty apartment, besides the tall windows. It made her skin prickle and she had that instinct to cover herself and create distance, but there was only the window behind her. Dark nipples were hard as one hand crossed her front to hold the opposite elbow as he got undressed too. Nakedness was an odd state for Carmen. In her experiences, it usually came with some degree of coercion. The young love story they'd had tasted like candy and cigarettes, not like skin. His hands had gotten under her shirt maybe, kid stuff. For all her supposed confidence, she was bashful like this. She'd never had normal intimacy, whatever that means. Shun probably wouldn't change that. This time there was no distraction, just the cold clutches of anxiety that ruled her when the pills didn't and his depraved eyes on her. No audience, no promise of pills. Only her and her almost.

The space between them disappeared. Carmen shrunk back against the cold glass. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if fucking against windows some several stories up was safe. But since when did she care about safe? She'd been pumping herself full of poisons for years, playing games with questionable characters to get them. His body was hot against the rest of the room, his leading cock especially. For a moment she was a teenager again, not sure what she was supposed to be doing with her hands. They landed on his shoulders as he got her pressed flushed to the glass. Despite the trauma of last time, a quiet groan passed her lips when his cock pushed hard into the soft skin of her belly and pinned her to the window.

She gave a heavy exhale at his words. More exhilarating than the promise of good dick, by far. "You talk like that to Tina?" She asked. And he probably did, and probably didn't mean it with either of them. She liked to believe he really meant it this time, but he was probably just continuing with what she wanted to hear. Carmen was okay with that. This was the best she'd felt since stepping off the train in Yareli.

He lifted her easy. It was the first time she faced him. Girls loved that shit. It felt like a complete one-eighty from being fucked in the ass on a foul mattress in front of his fucked up friends. Pussy was far more her speed, at least for the present. He was still big so she choked on a whine she failed to contain when he entered her in one long stroke. It stung her eyes as she squeezed them shut. It didn't last. It actually felt good as that ache ebbed, maybe that lingering discomfort even added something to it. Carmen wasn't familiar with that side of herself yet. One arm hung onto his shoulders. With the other, nails raked over his new ink, liked he'd mashed her own wounds.

 

[nihilistia]

Credit: Verse

He was pretty distracted by her hand on his cock. And this moment. He wasn't even on anything, not even drink, and it still felt pretty heady. He sighed through his nose and leaned back on her. But he felt the tension in her too. What's the point of having something on the side if they don't talk about your main, now and then? It pissed him off but he also didn't hate bringing Tina up when she had her hand on his cock. It just reminded him he had them both. Not like Tina didn't know he fucked when she wasn't there. But yeah. He knew she and Carmen were different. That's why it felt like wealth right now. Because his heart was two places, and he cock could be too. She said her comment like it was sweet while handling him, and he shrugged with the shoulder she wasn't on, looking at her eyes in the glass of the window. They used to bicker some times, in their old life. Maybe some of that had made him feel other than annoyed like now, but back then they didn't do anything about it. Their arguments didn't end like this, though. Maybe she would have stayed for that boy. But at least she came back to this one.

"Hey, you get to fuck whoever you want, Carry." he assured her and then grunted when her thumb slid over his slit to rid it of a pearl of precum. It was all fucked up that she talked about this now. She hadn't always been fucked up. Romance to her used to be pure. Now it had become as dirty as some of that shit she put in her body. But they were meeting over something now, weren't they? Truth was, though, that he'd probably get murderous if she had some pale ass boy, hanging out with her. Not that there'd be much lack of those, where she hung out now. Girls on the street could always find some unwashed dick to get on. But he bet he had more bullets than there was bodies for her to warm. He looked down at her hand around him. "Yeah, I love you alright." he teased but there was something genuine with it, too. Shit, they both knew this was something. Whatever it was, neither of them could say it was nothing.

He got out of his clothes and she waited after he had gotten her out of hers. Pretty silhouette against the city backdrop. Yeah, this had to be one of his milestones. He didn't know where it would lead him, usually just one way a stone takes you, but he was going to leap off, anyway. She had a face like a girl he used to know. It was nostalgic from his heart all the way down to his cock tip. He lifted her, and went inside her, all the way. Make her just something hot between him and the glass. His next breath exploded out against the side of her face when he got to submerge himself into her stomach. He tested himself against her, deep, see how deep Carmen Evans was. This felt more real than it had in the alley. Of course she'd have a stellar cunt, too. It's just, this should have happened so much sooner. A bit of frustration about that when he drew back and rammed into her again. This glass was made for things that went higher velocities than his hips. His ego might tell him he could out-fuck a bullet thought. And he of course was close to believing it.

But be believed in something else when she made that sound. A pained one. A prayer for his cock when she was stretched by it. He laughed darkly, shortly, when he started fucking her and she melted for it. Tina was all up in Carmen's head, and right now, he kinda liked it. He held her legs around him and started pushing her up the glass with his hard moving hips. He found her mouth and kissed her hard. "You wanna beat Tina?" he whispered cruelly into her lip as every syllable was a thrust. Yeah, the window would hold and the lights outside looked back at him like they were waiting for their turn. He wanted to show off to her, so he made the strokes long first, before they stayed deep and stirred her there, his hips moving with shorter motions, sticking up into her belly as his pelvis mashed into hers. And when he found a good pace there, he pulled almost all the way out and continued with the long rocking again. Her friction was good. He was absolutely comparing the two of them. Carmen was brand new. But Tina knew how to angle and roll her hips even when he was raping her. She was made of the problematic shit he liked. Carmen was still some tender notions, under it all.

But this was closer to the person he'd known. That meant this was more relevant, more real. It heightened it for him and he dug his fingers in deeper into the mere flesh of her thighs as he made sure they hugged him real tight, but he still had space to thrust between them, as though he was digging her out. He was showing off, making her ear wet with perspiration from his breaths.

"She listens to me, you know." he said, deep but still pretty steady for him fucking her hard. Sometimes his legs had to work to save his life, and that strength was engaged to consistently stab her now. "That's a thing I like with her." he suggested, like Tina was unruly. Carmen had invited this, and it was getting him off real good, so he was ready to go along with it. He looked for places that made her moan differently, and if he found them, he'd target those angles. He could be ruthless.

 

[nihilistia]

Whoever she wanted. Yeah, right. Sounded so nice she might just have to, if nothing more than to see if he really meant it, because she didn't believe it for a second. There was always a double standard. He could fuck who he liked, but he doubted he extended Tina that same courtesy, and even if she did sleep around, Carmen was certain that came with repercussions and that, if Tina ever did, she didn't do it anymore. Carmen was no Tina, she was even more valuable, or at least she could convince herself that was true as she looked back at the depravity in his dark eyes. Not like the desires of men, more like the hunger of an animal. She could see the inspiration for the many teeth he'd been given.

But the truth was, Carmen didn't want anyone else, the longer her legs remained wrapped around his hips. It had never felt like this, never meant anything more than a transaction. But she didn't want anything from him except for an exchange of cum and her own juices, and maybe a drip of affection. He fucked her like he was still angry, so she didn't expect much of it. Carmen would let him stay angry as long as it took for him to forgive her. It felt like she deserved it, anyway, and all she knew was how to make her anguish last. She was comfortable in her struggles and uncertainty. She didn't even know what life would look like if things were all alright, whatever that means. Already, things felt a little too good to be true, like it collapse around her any second.

But the only thing crushed now was her lungs as he smashed her snug to the glass. Her heated skin made a silhouette of fog around her thin frame. Carmen's long legs held him tight, especially at first, tall girls don't get to experience being picked up too often. But he was sturdy, almost annoyingly so as it pinned her snug to the cold surface. There was nowhere to escape and, for once, she didn't want to be anywhere else. She was there for it, really there. Not in a haze or just blocking it out until it was over, like she'd gotten so good at. Carmen felt every inch of him. Dick, sure, but the strength distorted by the black ink on his arm, the pull of muscle in his back, the set of his jaw as it brushed her cheek.

Carmen could practically feel him bruising her cervix. If anyone had reached it before, she'd been too lost to remember it. It hurt and a gasp leaped from her lungs before his mouth crashed against hers like a car wreck. The back of her skull hit the window, each thrust making her climb up the smooth surface before she slid back down to meet him. She inhaled his words, leaning into his lips because she didn't want the kiss to end just to talk about fucking Tina. She was over Tina, at least in that moment, but his question stirred her insides even more than his violent dick. Carmen was breathless and could only nod like she would be judged by her eagerness. She didn't want to compete with some girl over some boy, that's not the kind of woman she was. But he wasn't some boy. It was Shun.

She managed a breathless huff of a laugh. She had a hard time picturing Tina as someone who behaved, crazy little party girl. Carmen moved her fingers through the hair at the back of his head. It was coarse like she remembered, when he laid his head on her lap when they sat in the grass at the park after school, and she ran her nails over his scalp, back before she picked them to nothing. "Yeah, I'm sure she rolls over and wags her tail like a good girl," she answered in that sarcastic tone, but there was a quiver to her breath. She'd missed a lot of firsts with Shun, no fumbling over being with someone for the first time, none of the awkwardness of being seen naked, or losing your virginity. The present day Shun was nothing like that. He fucked like he knew how and when her head was clearer, she'd be resentful of her old self. She should have been the one tangled up with him every chance, just a couple of kids figuring it out. But instead, he'd gained experience against the bodies of others. What a fool she'd been.

At least she got to have him now and could benefits from those years of practice. Carmen couldn't remember the last time she came for something other than own fingers. Not that she had done that in a while, wasn't the kind of pleasure she'd chased in recent years. Her skin burned hot despite the chill as it washed over her before hitting her hard. He knew and kept digging for it. Her head fell forward beside his, barely able to keep her eyes open. Her jaw opened wider than she knew it could. Her thighs quivered and her fingers searched for purchase on his shoulders. Carmen was glad he couldn't see her face. She hated the lack of control she had over her features when she came, and so few people had seen it that she remained bashful. She barely took a breath before it was gone and she was left gulping down air.

What were they talking about? Right, Tina. "You wanted someone who could run with you, once," and she didn't really mean sprinting. Someone who could wreak havoc with. They weren't kids anymore. That would look different now, he made real trouble now, but she didn't care if she could have Shun. Not like Carmen hadn't already spent a couple nights in jail. "Not just some pet you can keep on a leash. You finna put a muzzle on me next?"

 

[nihilistia]

Credit: Verse

Every time he fucked her, it was the completion of something. Every time mattered. Even when he wanted it to sate a need, it was chipping away at a problem. At a whole. He was rebuilding them, somehow, the only way you can when something's gone. Out of parts that felt and smelled like the girl she used to be. This was damn near close enough. This was her clean, for just a second. Without the gifts he came with, without all the baggage. They were going to be grotesque miasmas, put together by fields of nostalgia that had started to rot on either side of Yareli's border. A reunion that started wrong, but had now kind of shaped the world around them. He could see it in the lights behind her, like berries in a vineyard, an impossible biological diversity. Whether they won it over or not, or if it even knew about them, it was their city. Even if they were only one pair of many, in stories written here. They were part of the wealth of its undergrowth, and in their togetherness, they were glorious. Maybe they represented it well, with their skins gluing together, having come from filth, and now bucking against bulletproof glass in an impossibly priced apartment. All their romance traded for money, and all their romanticism punctured against jagged, real edges.

She felt good, is what he meant. He was all dirty and fucked up, and not even sure if he wanted to get out of it, but she still took him inside her. Even felt like she wanted it, this time. Out of a sober Carmen, that meant everything. More than Shun deserved. He laughed like it hurt, short and pained, when he buried himself in her, and found the very last of her depths. That was a beautiful thing. Was she his then? Even if that's all she amounted to, maybe that was god enough? He wasn't foreign to this complete feeling, but he liked that the tall girl wasn't taller than him, inside. He gave her a kiss for it, and the kiss had teeth for her, not the biting kind, but mashing their fronts against her. "Fuck, you give it good." he said, almost complaining as he dug harder into her now that he'd been introduced to her last barrier before her last room. It was crushing his cockhead.

He was lost in all the gifts he could suck of through his nostrils when his face was against the side of hers, nose cutting up against her temple and the hair there, as he thrust into her, up, up. This was a kind of privacy. Not some alley and not in front of his friends. She felt better like this. Her cunt belonged to him in here. He'd almost deserved it too, taking her to the veritable prize of a home, despite the mess left by those who either traded up, or were dead. Stepping into someone's life. It's all housing ever could be, in a city that was so expensive you'd pay your arm and leg, even when you could afford the price on the tag. He breathed into her ear to let her know he appreciated the tug of her pussy around his cock when he pulled, and the stop of it when he stabbed himself back into her. Wanted to try out the stretch in his old friend, and hurry his hips to show her what he got. Slender build, sure, but there was some unholy reserves in the fatless muscles connecting his lower and upper half.

He laughed with some frustration, though, right into that ear, too. Tina. His Tina. "Nothing wrong with a good girl." he said when Carmen taught him just how to get to her. She held on to him like she was going to rip him apart, and her hips realigned just so. So he fucked her that way. Of course he would. Her body was a straight path to it. He thrust hard and didn't relent, he felt the tension build in her and how she held him like she'd die without him, and die with him, and all that stuff. He sighed into her ear when that hard tension in her released, and the laxness in her hips told him he'd gotten her there. He had tried to turn his head to see, but all he heard was her tongue and throat when she opened her mouth. And the absence of her breath, before the guttural intakes of it. He was proud. He was glad she got to see who he became. And now he knew her. Now he knew where inside to hunt for her. It changed women, when you unlocked them like that. He chuckled in her air as he chose his own rhythm inside her, which was a bit more savoring of her cunt walls, committing the feel of her to memory.

He nuzzled her head back to the glass violently, and looked at her as he continued to fuck her up the window. Leaning back, he could see more of her. Pretty Carmen Evans, swallowed up by the light and night, the same. He laughed quietly, though, with the breaths that he had, that weren't dedicated to huffs when he pushed into her, and hisses, dragging out. He was close too. It was fucking stupid being with her raw, and not pulling out. But he was tingling too much to even seriously consider it. He pressed her so well against the surface that his right arm was free to run its hand over her cheek as he admired her. "You're not gonna run with me, Carmen." he breathed as he hurried a bit, strokes inside her still long, not that frantic, punishing pace. Muzzle. He put his palm over her mouth and grunted as he came into her. He flooded her like the pressure of his seed would break down her cervix and drown her womb. "Like this?" he asked like he was being softly gutted but the rapture soaring through his lower body.

He squeezed her lower face and crushed the back of her skull against the glass like he was trying to shut himself up. He still ended up panting against her, his chest scraping up against her breasts to still pin her. Her long legs sure worked well for this. His his palm easing up but his fingers digging into her cheeks, it would be more of a muzzle than before. He was trying to hold on to some sweetness in himself, maybe, but it was difficult, now that he'd gotten to cum. He slid down, holding on, and he ended up kneeling for her, so that she could straddle him. They were still married to the window by way of her back. His hand finally dragged to the side from her mouth and it deformed her expression before he let go and could look at her. He put his forehead to hers and smiled into her big, dark eyes. His cock carried his heartbeat into her cumsoaked cunt, echoing into her baby place.

"I only take good girls on jobs." he said, and there was a lot of truth to that. His tongue flicked out, for comfort, to lap at her upper lip. "You're not going to be a good girl, are you, Carry?" And there was dead certainty in the affection of his voice. "You're just going to be my liability. And that's what we are."

 

[nihilistia]

Fucking dickhead, turning her words on her. She should have known, that one was on her. Carmen twisted her head away, but there was nowhere to go, stuck up against the glass. It kind of killed the buzz from the first good fuck she'd had in a while, but seemed to have the opposite effect on Shun. But she already knew he got off on controlling her. This apartment was nothing but a gilded, more comfortable cage. Less supervision, but a cage still. But with little else out there for her, she'd take the upgrade. Where else would she go if she wasn't chasing after him? On her way to a grave, probably. Who am I kidding? The wasn't worth a plot, at best she'd be in some urn. She could only pant hot breath from her nose, over his knuckles, as she watched him finish. Her insides felt bruised and battered and he surely felt the grinding of her teeth as he tried to smush her skull against the glass. She didn't like that sensation, but it was far from the worse thing he'd done since her return.

She found it annoying, the way he looked good as he pumped her full. He had better control of his features than she did, it seemed. Carmen always thought he was pretty for a boy. That hadn't changed now that he was a man, it was just different. He had harder edges, but she was learning to like them, suppose she had them too. She liked making him feel good. It came as sort of instinct to certain girls, the kind of girls who stayed around a man like Shun. She loved him, and so she couldn't resist it. Tina was much the same. When he was pleased with her in the end, it wiped away the memory of the rest when it wasn't good for her, she couldn't even tell you how often that was. They'd been an item for years and it all sort of bled together now. For Carmen, it soothed the insult of how he treated her since her homecoming. At least, for a little while. But she wouldn't forget the way Tina could.

She looked back at him a little softer when his palm let up, even when his fingers were still sharp points digging in her soft skin, extensions of the teeth running down his arm. It still hurt, like the throbbing in her cunt. Carmen was quickly learning that was part of it, if this was really the life she wanted. It was too late to turn back, and nor did she want to. She wasn't better than this. It was what she deserved, wasn't it? To be some side piece? It was better than his indifference. Besides, she got the good apartment. It was empty, mostly, but still. If he was in it with her, that didn't matter.

She didn't want it to be over, didn't want to face that reality. Maybe he didn't either, or maybe it was softening the blow of his leaving. That was doubtful, though. Regardless, he sunk down with her, when he could have just as easily put his clothes back on and gone back to his little house bunny. Carmen couldn't tell if the throbbing was his or her own as he settled, her on his lap. His hand was done distorting her features and everything she wanted to say about it was gone. She had bigger problems. She was on her knees, initially, but leaned her weight into the glass to move her legs around him in too late lotus position that looked a lot more tender than what they'd actually just done. She didn't know if he was even capable of capable of tender anymore.

Carmen didn't wonder for long. It has never been either of their strongsuits. As a girl, trying to make up for something she didn't understand, keeping up with the boys who didn't accept her, she was always more rough than necessary. Their play fighting always just looked like fighting, until they were older and the flavor of that fighting changed. Like old days, how her brow crashed against his and pressed back hard like she could get inside his head and finally understand it.

"I don't even get a chance?" Carmen asked with a hopefulness to her tone that she didn't believe herself. Her breaths were jagged, crashing like waves against the tide of his breathing as she clung close to him. "We used to do real good, you and me," she said and smiled at that ghost of a memory, when stakes were a lot lower than now.

His words stung and she imagined that was the intention. But she only smiled back, fingers combing through the hair at the back of his head. "C'mon, Shun. I can be everything you need," Carmen said, didn't know what that meant, but she really did mean it. What could Tina give him that she couldn't? She could be better than Tina. "I need more than an empty apartment to sit around and get high in while you're not here." Which she imagined would be most of the time. "I'm tired of living like this." And intellectually, she meant it, even if her demons weren't so keen to loosen their iron clutches.

 

[nihilistia]

Credit: Verse

Maybe it was debasement of wherever he'd put the idea of love in his heart; all the dalliances. Of course, sometimes it was just body to body, the consumption of flesh, because flesh had value; that's all this business was. They sold it and enjoyed, watched it bleed and drown and do what they wanted, and then they motivated it and dominated it with flesh, too. But to him, what he did to Tina was a reminded of whatever romantic notions he'd held on to, past Carmen and her leaving. Carmen was the heart that broke. And looking down at his blonde faithful, an acolyte of his glory, he got to desecrate that idea, and the run-off emotion mixed with the pleasures that he got, simply through the friction of pushing up and breathing the emotions he'd once had. Because what's better than being in love? Destroying it. When those thoughts got into his head, that's all he could see and feel, and it made him cum buckets, every time. It was his own dying, and he loved it. However much his life in the meager echelons of this syndicate relied on him trying to survive; he was fully engulfed in killing himself, too.

That's what he saw in the girls who had to take it in the ass and be stolen from their families in other countries or states. Their misery was the currency upon which he based his own value, and the depth of his delights. And it was raw and unfiltered in Carmen. And he should know about the insides of Carmen, because he was there, right now. He couldn't do anything wrong when he was with her, because hurting her was killing him, and loving her was right. It should say something that he was obviously leaning one way, given those two choices. It was harrowing seeding her, because it was abruptly animal, outside of the things that he enjoyed and hated about fucking her. It was a critical thing, and it tore through him. Familiar but more acute than with others, like there was something in her that demanded more of him. It was how he paid for hurting something that should have been kept above the rest. His holy thing, that he was constantly breaking. She should be happy he didn't love her more, or she would have been dead by now. Would she have wanted to know that?

But it was better now, against the glass, in the moments of ebb from his new self, all these vices that clung to him like sickness and barnacles. When the scent of her unwash and his expensive but poorly used perfumes mingled with the welcome and elicit notes of what they'd done. She was another body that wasn't Tina, but this was worse, as fat as fidelity went. So it mattered more, registered more. How could it not be heartfelt, when she looked at him like that, and her long legs made a tight hug for him. This was all he wanted, right; the bad motherfucker and the poet boy who knew he was going to do abhorrent things to survive. What more is there than a pretty old friend, wanting things from you, after she'd already paid? She couldn't demand it. It gave him power to abuse. Why did getting everything with Carmen feel so differently than with Tina? There were always claw marks on Carmen's gifts, and always a shrill quality to the orgasms he had with her. Made them haunting, and it hollowed him out. It wasn't tender, no. It was blood that went with her when she left, coming back to him bad. But his, nonetheless.

It was so pretty he almost cried, the way she talked to him now. Like she was a girl among all the fierce things. He didn't have to drag and rape it out of her. His cock was softer inside her, though still not relaxed. And here she was, asking, begging. Wanting to be enough. It was delicious and his brow pinched like when she used to catch polled when the summers were unbearable, right from the air, and strike it across his cheekbones. Had he deserved this now? Had he been hard and evil enough to measure up to the horrors she lived on her own? Had his cock been bigger and had his cruelty been scarier? Had the marks he made on her blotted out the ones she'd earned from the world outside? Looking at her now, sweet and hurting and absolved from their endorphin release, he was just was as close to crying for her, as he had been, when city flowers tried to pollinate each other, and she'd dusted their mating dance on his face. Yellow on yellow.

He leaned into it, and that shifted him inside her. She had the glass to lean on and he wanted to be as close as he could. In the vacancy of lust, there was just the togetherness of the aftermath. They had to work quickly, before all their addictions flooded back to chase away the sincerity. Maybe if he concentrated and opened his heart raw enough, he could know her, just start to, before she became the girl in the alley who'd smile for chemicals, and turn around for pills. His palms touched the glass and he put his cheek hard to hers.

"Fuck." he gargled out. Maybe she thought it was because of how her cunt slid around his cock. Maybe he'd really start to cry. He kissed her for it, this moment she'd given him. And then his heart wasn't just a heart, but all the shadows it was made up of, again. He remembered her running. Back then, and in his apartment, and how he hated it. The absence of it now just reminded him of it. "You just gotta be happy with this for now." Yeah, he tasted it on the way out and it was its usual bitter and salt. The kiss on her temple was as demeaning as it shoved her skull back.

"You want stuff, I give you stuff. You wanted a place to stay, I gave you a good view." He had heard iterations from bad men to good women all his life. He knew the speech. His hips rolled and he hated that he got a bit hard from it now, that the flavors were familiar, like they were when he'd usually fuck. He leaned back and he was smug, but his teeth were sharp in that grin. "But you fucked those pills up and you're going to fuck this apartment up too. I'll take that." he touched his thumb to her lips like he wanted to apologize to them specifically. And then he looked at her eyes. "But now you want to move on to my work." he shook his head. "You're gonna want more, always, but it's gotta make sense, Carmen." he said and touched behind his own ears like there was an existential headache brewing. He swallowed it down.

"I had this grind when you weren't here. I gotta be faithful to it. You're just going to be some druggie that does well enough to get by until your can get your hands on a big enough score to fuck up, and then what? I'm not that big yet. They don't have much mercy for me. My weight ain't nothing right now." he shrugged and looked at the apartment in the black reflections of the window. "I mean. I'm doing okay by you." Like he was saying she wasn't worth it. "But you're going to stay put." His eyes were sharply on her then. "Right? And you'll be happy and welcome me home, even though I don't live here." Because that's not what he wanted, but that's all he thought he could have. And it was definitely all he'd give to her.

 

[nihilistia]

Tina wasn't going anywhere. Shit, she wasn't even becoming the side piece. That was still Carmen. Somewhere inside of her, the logical parts, she knew that's how it would go. Somehow she'd still had some hope, but it died every moment she spent around him. That should have been her clue to go. One of many, but a damn good one as that hope became whittled down thinner and thinner. He could break it with his fingers, if he wanted to, but she clung to him.

He regarded her like she was an annoyance for needing anything. And she, wrapped up in him, wanted to apologize for it. Wanted to promise she wouldn't ask for a single thing more. But that wasn't true. Not if she was really going to stay put, as he said. She couldn't get by with nothing. As she nodded, she meant it. Could be a whole lot worse for an addict than a place to sleep and bathe and eat and get loaded. All that and someone who loved her. who looked in on her.

He gave her only as much trust as she deserved. She'd ruined it before. His hurt hadn't spilled from his eyes, it built in his blood. She wanted to tell him to go after what he said but on what authority? It was his place, she was just some junkie squatter. Instead, he told him she loved him and hugged him tight around the neck. She wouldn't skip the chance to say so now that she had a second chance at things. The ghost of her meant it almost as much as the addict he'd been feeding.

She did stay put, for a few days. Alone in an apartment was boring. And though she agreed to behave, she wasn't inclined to. It was childish the way she thought acting up would make him notice her. But it's not like he was ever actually going to trust her with anything of value. So any attention was good attention, these days. Honestly, she kind of missed the company of the last place. He was almost never there. He dropped in at random hours, which she expected was intentional, to make sure she really was there.

There was food and basic necessities. He got her a phone. Older model but she only used it to blow him up when she was bored. She wanted to call Davina, but had gotten tired of the rejection from her own family. When she finally got bored, she went looking for jobs. Couldn't rely on Shun for everything, but she wasn't a particularly good candidate. For anything. But the library was free. She'd even picked up some cheap art supplies from a garage sale for those days when she just looked at the page and the words didn't come.

One of her favorite poets from when they were in school wrote the line, I think that the genes for being an artist and mentally ill aren't just related, they are the same gene. That always stuck in her head. As long as she was creating something, it felt like it was worth being this fucking mess she'd made of herself.

The walls were too white. It hurt her head when she was lonely and looking for an outlet that wasn't the pill bottle. She painted a big, red Torii gate on the living room wall that seemed to drip at the bottom. Under it was something vaguely human. With disproportionately long limbs and blue skin. The face was distorted by a smile, making it too wide before the corners of the red lips curved up in jagged edges to the temples. It was filled with dozens of extra teeth with red gums and black gaps between. Above the haunted smile was a nose and thirteen red-rimmed eyes, irregularly shaped focused in different directions. Another toothy smile cut with no start and no end around the neck, with no lips to soften where the teeth blended into the sickly skin. It was opened on one side, a long black tongue unfurling from the darkness

If vandalizing the apartment didn't upset him, the boys she brought back with her certainly might. Carmen wasn't too picky. She didn't want to fuck them, she just wanted Shun to tell her she couldn't. One of these days he was bound to catch her at the wrong time.



Tina, though, she was every bit that good girl he wanted. Didn't ask where he was when he'd been out late, just had food staying warm in the oven. She'd learned to be a light sleeper, or just sleep on the couch so that she'd hear him come home and drag her ass out of bed to greet him like a dog, no matter the hour. She was in a good mood, one night, when she placed a plate in front of him. Grabbed his face, before he could touch the food and kissed every inch of it. A Tina move, whenever she was happy. It had started in their early days and persisted, even though she was pretty sure he didn't actually like when she did it. They both made compromises, his were just small in comparison. He got to suffer her girlish affection and, well, she just happily suffered him.

"Denya told me they gave you a new apartment," she announced the reason for her high spirits, bouncing a bit in place. She'd seen the guys when she was out with her own friends. Tina never asked where Shun was, in case she didn't like the answer. She still wore the night out in smudged makeup around her bloodshot eyes. Didn't have the energy to wash it all off, but still found it to cook for him. This was reason to celebrate. She didn't want to see Aska bathed in red every time she walked out of the bedroom anymore.